Eric Le Sage continues his ongoing complete Schumann cycle in fine form. In the eight Novelletten, the pianist’s supple, scurrying treatment of the Sixth, and his rushing urgency within the opening sections of the Second and Third stand out. However, his liberal tempo fluctuations in the Third telegraph the sense of surprise in Schumann’s more discreetly deployed expressive directives, and also dissipate the contrapuntal interplay that András Schiff and Claudio Arrau clearly project.
Le Sage’s leonine, incisive fingerwork brings the Second sonata’s knotty outer movements to life, although the slow movement’s internalized rubato and super-subtle timbral distinction between hands caught me off guard and compelled me to listen several times in a row. By contrast, Le Sage’s rounded, introspective take on Op. 111’s central piece yields to the more shapely and vocally informed Arrau and Horowitz versions.
Next to the provocative mood contrasts and varied articulations András Schiff and Herbert Schuch draw from the four Nachtstücke Op. 23 movements, Le Sage’s high standards yield more generalized results by comparison. Yet any pianist who can make the Märchen and Gesänge der Frühe sound more musically interesting than they are by simply playing them straight has my admiration. The sonics are closer and a little harsher than in this cycle’s previous volumes.
